Igniting a passion for reading in our communities

At Amazon, we believe the excitement of reading should be shared by everyone. We want to do our part to ignite a lasting passion for reading among children. As part of our contribution to the communities where our customers and employees live, we donate Fire tablets and Fire Kids Edition tablets to schools and libraries throughout the world.

Recently, some of our North America Fulfillment Center employees worked with local organizations to ignite the passion for reading in:

Arizona: In Phoenix, 7,000 associates and their families donated Fire tablets and Amazon gift cards to local middle schools at a community sports event. Texas: Amazon donated Fire Kids Edition tablets to the children’s sections of Texas Public Libraries and associates read to 60+ students on the new tablets. An associate stated, “I felt proud to know that I work for a company that believes in giving back to my community… I felt as though we exemplified our commitment to innovation in the classroom for future generations.”

Ohio: At Union Bethel’s Early Childhood Programs in Cincinnati, Amazon donated to the Head Start division, where associates joined students from low-income backgrounds for a workshop with reading time and an introduction to the Kindle technology.

Wisconsin: At Lance Middle School in Kenosha, Amazon donated tablets and associates demonstrated how to use the technology by reading to students. Kentucky: In addition to a tablet donation in Campbellsville, Amazon also launched the “1,000 Hour Sizzling Summer Reading Challenge,” where Campbellsville Elementary School students are challenged to collectively read 1,000 pages over the summer, after which Amazon will donate 100 books to their school library in the fall. One associate said, “My favorite part of the event was seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces!”

Since launching the Device Donation Program, we’ve donated thousands of Kindles and Fire Tablets to students, and we’ve provided schools with gift cards to purchase content.